Sunday, November 30, 2014

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Cycle #3)

The dreaded third book in a series review. It can be hard to review books mid-series, so this one is going to be brief and spoiler free for the entire series.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue in a lot of ways is a test to see how closely you've been reading the other books. It pulls a lot from a deeply established mythology to keep the plot going which was hard for me because I hadn't re-read the previous books. I kind of had to catch myself up on what was going on.

My favorite parts of this series, that I noticed more so in the book, is the dialogue between characters. They just have this great back and forth that is super entertaining. The characters in this series are some of the most solid and well developed characters I've read in YA. They all have so much agency that it's almost like you're getting four story arcs with each book.

I have started to notice how flowery the writing can be at times, particularly when a scene is from Gansey's perspective. When Stiefvater is writing from Adam's POV it tends to be more straightforward and I wish she would stick with it more. Sometimes that kind of writing would take me out of the book.

The magical elements in this book have been ramped Up To Eleven. With each new installment Stiefvater has been slowly luring the reader out of reality and into the occult and this book really explores those elements. I was always hesitant with calling this series fantasy, but this book has put it over the line for me.

I read this book for the 24in48 Readathon and it was the perfect choice, every chapter had me flipping to see what was going to happen next. I'll be honest, I was a little confused about what was going on half the time, but I was along for the ride.

The most amazing part of this for me is that I'm not feeling any series fatigue setting in. Stiefvater is still keeping it imaginative, complex and fun. I can't wait to see how it all ends.

I LOVED Maggie Stiefvater's Wolves of Mercy Falls series, and have been thinking about picking up these books for quite some time now. I haven't gotten around to doing so, EVEN though EVERYONE is loving them. Another awesome review!